Guns, ropes & copters

Almost 1,000 boys get training to last a lifetime

CHECKING OUT an M-16 machine gun with grenade launcher. Rappelling down a 45-degree incline with a rope. Buckling into a seat in a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and even touching the control panel.

What more could an 8-year-old boy ask for?

Almost 1,000 Oahu Cub Scouts did these things and more over three days of field trips to Schofield Barracks' East Range this week.

Enthusiasm for the hands-on event was strong yesterday, as more than 300 boys -- mostly ages 7, 8 or 9 -- participated in what has been an annual tradition for the Cub Scouts and Schofield soldiers since 1968. Other groups were at the half-day camp Tuesday and today.

Sometimes, the boys were fooling around, mock-boxing each other with the adult-size leather gloves they used for the rappelling exercise, or even digging in the sand where Army soldiers landed after their four-story descents by rope.

As Sgt. Trent Strothkamp showed one group of boys a lineup of commonly used guns, their interest grew as the guns got bigger.

Machine guns were admired in silence, but when Strothkamp held up a model with a 40 mm grenade launcher attached, an irrepressible "Whoa!" erupted from the audience.

"Oh yeah!" added one boy.

Paul Kurihara and Lee Beckman both remember going to similar events at Schofield when they were youngsters. Yesterday, they accompanied their sons, Jonas Kurihara and Zee Beckman, both 8-year-old members of Cub Pack 528 in Pearl Ridge.

"This gives them an opportunity to get out and expose themselves to different career activities," Paul Kurihara said, "and it gets them out of the house, instead of playing Gameboys."

Kurihara said he is not particularly promoting the military as a career path for his son, but would support it if that is what he chooses.

"I want him to do whatever he wants to do," he said as a clump of parents and pack leaders laden with cameras, snacks and water followed their boys from activity to activity.

Michael Braham, Cub Scout Council adviser for the visit to Schofield, called the days a "win-win-win event" that benefits the boys, their parents and the Army's 25th Infantry Division (Light).

"The boys get to meet the soldiers, and the soldiers are heroes to them and role models," Braham said.

For the soldiers, many of whom have served time in Iraq or Afghanistan, offering a few days of scaled-down training for such enthusiastic pupils provides a welcome respite.

"We do so much training, it's nice to give to the kids, nice to show that we do have time for them," said Sgt. Isaiah Hunter as he instructed boys on how to pull themselves across a gulch on a rope bridge.

Schofield soldiers demonstrated a variety of rappelling techniques from a 45-foot-tall training tower, including a Spider-Man-like, face-first descent. The youngsters applauded, but a little leery about whether they were going to try.

"I could try that," said Garrett Andrew, of Pack 388, "but it's scary. You could fall and die."

As it turned out, Scouting fathers and pack leaders stood at the bottom of 45-degree wooden inclines to catch any boys that slipped while rappelling a distance of about 15 feet.

Few did, but Andrew was one of them and got a scraped elbow from the weathered wood.

"It doesn't hurt," he said as he bounded away to try the descent again.